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newsSolar distiller showdown take-2
Yesterday I tested three solar water distillers side-by-side:
https://bkhome.org/news/201912/solar-distiller-showdown.html
There was a hiccup with the F-Cubed panel, the cloth becoming partly
dry, so have repeated the test today. Friday, 13 December, 2019, in
Perth, Australia.
Two changes from yesterday. This time I lowered the water container
for the F-Cubed panel, down one rung on the ladder -- so the water
container went from 1430mm above ground, down to 1120mm. Secondly, put a
bit more insulation under the basin-type distiller -- previously had
one 12mm MDF, this time added a 16mm plywood sheet and a towel:
The test proceeded same as yesterday, here are the results:
| Time am/pm |
Sun W/m2 |
Amb. degC |
Top, degC C1000, wick, basin |
Comments |
||
| 8.00 |
840 |
34.7 |
38.3 |
39.7 |
33.8 |
|
| 9.00 |
970 |
35.4 |
58.2 |
49.5 |
44.8 |
Official: 34degC, 23km/h |
| 10.00 |
960 |
36.9 |
67.2 |
59.1 |
58.4 |
Official: 36degC, 23km/h |
| 11.00 |
1030 |
38.7 |
72.4 |
66.0 |
70.9 |
|
| 12.00 |
1012 |
39.9 |
74.5 |
72.0 |
79.2 |
Dry patches in C1000 |
| 1.00 |
960 |
40.8 |
69.1 |
70.8 |
81.5 |
Official: 39degC, 13km/h |
| 2.00 |
1005 |
40.0 |
73.5 |
69.8 |
79.6 |
Official: 40degC, 11km/h |
| 3.00 |
970 |
40.9 |
68.3 |
63.9 |
75.3 |
Official: 41degC, 14km/h |
| 4.30 |
890 |
38.7 |
49.6 |
47.9 |
61.7 |
Official: 39degC, 26km/h |
Stopped at 5.30pm.
About midday, dry patches were starting to appear in the cloth of the
C1000, at the bottom. I moved the water container back up to the higher
rung, and that fixed it, quite quickly. Lesson: better to have more
water flowing through than not enough!
Notice how hot the basin-type got! One good thing -- that will kill any pathogens inside the distiller.
Here are the results:
| C1000 |
wick |
basin |
|
| Tally (litres) |
6.77 |
1.53 |
2.06 |
| Normalized (litres/m2) |
6.77 |
4.60 |
5.89 |
Wow, stellar performance! So, the simple basin-type is 87% as efficient as the F-Cubed C1000 distiller. Pretty good.
I am wondering if my wick-type distiller might have performed better
with more water flow through it. Waste water output reduced to just
about nothing in the afternoon, but I could not see if the cloth was
drying out. Although I very much like the basin-type because of it's
simplicity, both in construction and usage, I might do one more test
with the wick-type, with the water container higher up ....maybe.
Tags: nomad